In many cases, the end of the year gives you time to step back and take stock of the last 12 months. This is when many of us take a hard look at what worked and what did not, complete performance reviews, and formulate plans for the coming year. For me, it is all of those things plus a time when I u...

The Angelus Foundation today welcomed the Home Affairs Committee's (HAC) deep concerns about legal highs and condemned the Government's "negligence" over the lack of an effective programme of drug prevention and education. The Angelus Foundation is the only drugs charity dedicated to combating legal highs and club drugs and launched a national campaign in October including the website http://www.whynotfindout.org.

The Home Affairs Select Committee report 'Breaking the Cycle' published today rightly highlights the highly worrying trend of young people taking many new substances with no knowledge of their risks. Last year, there were 49 new drugs discovered (EMCDDA figures) which was a record; this year the total could be as high as 70. At the same time, the Department of Education has cut its budget for drugs education by 80 percent. The HAC report itself refers to Government's lack of action as "dangerous."

Angelus's evidence, which is referenced throughout the HAC report, also supports the HAC recommendations for a Royal Commission and a change in the governance of drug policy from the Home Office.

The founder of the Angelus Foundation, Maryon Stewart, said: "We all have a stake in drugs policy. The Home Affairs Committee report shows drugs education has fallen off a cliff. There is no research being carried out on what works best and no monitoring of what little there is. At a time when the need to inform young people about the risks has never been higher, to not give it any priority amounts to negligence.

"The Home Office's grip on drug policy means there is not any real focus on prevention and education. We need a broader commitment to making effective policy and that means giving responsibility to other departments and agencies. We cannot just sit by and allow young people to get into trouble with this wave of new drugs and potentially play Russian Roulette with their wellbeing and even their lives."

2) The Angelus Foundation maintains there is almost no guidance or resources given by the Department of Education to schools and universities to give young people information about drugs, particularly legal highs. In March this year the Home Secretary's set out the priorities for drug policy to the Chair of the Advisory Council on the Misuse of Drugs and did not mention education or prevention.

3) Figures show that spending on drugs education - including information services - has fallen from £3.9m in 2009-10 to £0.5m in 2010-11.

SYS-CON Events announced today that MangoApps will exhibit at SYS-CON's 16th International Cloud Expo®, which will take place on June 9-11, 2015, at the Javits Center in New York City, NY., and the 17th International Cloud Expo®, which will take place on November 3–5, 2015, at the Sant...

SYS-CON Events announced today that Solgenia will exhibit at SYS-CON's 16th International Cloud Expo®, which will take place on June 9-11, 2015, at the Javits Center in New York City, NY, and the 17th International Cloud Expo®, which will take place on November 3–5, 2015, at the Santa ...

The world's leading Cloud event, Cloud Expo has launched Microservices Journal on the SYS-CON.com portal, featuring over 19,000 original articles, news stories, features, and blog entries.
DevOps Journal is focused on this critical enterprise IT topic in the world of cloud computing.
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Hosted PaaS providers have given independent developers and startups huge advantages in efficiency and reduced time-to-market over their more process-bound counterparts in enterprises. Software frameworks are now available that allow enterprise IT departments to provide these same adva...

SYS-CON Events announced today the IoT Bootcamp – Jumpstart Your IoT Strategy, being held June 9–10, 2015, in conjunction with 16th Cloud Expo and Internet of @ThingsExpo at the Javits Center in New York City. This is your chance to jumpstart your IoT strategy.
Combined with real-worl...

Even though it’s now Microservices Journal, long-time fans of SOA World Magazine can take comfort in the fact that the URL – soa.sys-con.com – remains unchanged. And that’s no mistake, as microservices are really nothing more than a new and improved take on the Service-Oriented Archite...